Greg was born in Norwood Adelaide in August 1946. As a young man he played footy he was also a keen surf lifesaver.
Greg went to Norwood Primary School and then to Le Fevre boys technical High School. After leaving school Greg finished high school at the age of 17.
He worked as a refrigerator mechanic apprentice up until he moved to Melbourne. Greg claims that back then Life was good, there were many jobs were around and life was simple.
Greg and his family moved to Melbourne because of his father’s promotion.
Greg always loved aircraft, he got his passion from his uncle who was in the air force in World War 2.
Greg started work as an apprentice with the TAA airline industry.
TAA is now under the name of Qantas.
Greg worked in the airline industry from 1965 to 1983, some of the aircrafts Greg worked on were a piston engine propelled aircraft like a DC3 and DC4, Fokker Friendship, pure jet Boeing 707, 727 and a Douglas DC9.
At TAA Greg started out working on domestic passenger aircrafts as an electrical and electronic maintenance engineer.
He was doing jobs such as Major Overhaul, Semi Major Overhaul and Minor overhaul maintenance.
Major overhaul would take up to many months, semi major and minor would take up to days or weeks.
The first aircraft Greg worked on was a DC3, America called it Dakota, it was used to take out the seats and transport animals.
In 1983 Greg left the airline industry and started his second career as a technical teacher. His first school was Lilydale High, he was there for 12 months. Greg would teach 2 and a half days at school and 2 and a half days pursuing a bachelor of education. Greg then went onto Darebin Thornbury then Broadmeadows, he was at Broadmeadows for 3 years. (1984 – 1987). Greg had then moved onto his third school which was St Helena and he was in charge of the Science and Technology department. On top of Greg’s School technology work he would go to the board of studies to write curriculum for years 7 – 12.
Greg’s career was suddenly interrupted because of the discovery of brain tumors.
After 2 years of intense medical treatment he went back to work however he only lasted less than a year because of medical complications.
At the age of 55, Greg was superannuated out of the Education Department as he was unable to teach.
It took him 10 years to recover and after all that time and numerous operations he left is left with a high level of nerve damage.
Greg Mitchell interview by Tim Smith and Dylan Mimmo, Eltham High School October 2016 as part of the Stories of My Life Project with Eltham Men’s Shed and BNLLEN
